Lobster tail sales ban is lifted

A few years ago, Outback Steakhouse called Bill Adler, executive director of the Massachusetts Lobstermen's Association, about a surf-and-turf problem.

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By C. RYAN BARBER

capecodtimes.com

By C. RYAN BARBER

Posted Jul. 15, 2013 at 2:00 AM

By C. RYAN BARBER
Posted Jul. 15, 2013 at 2:00 AM

» Social News

A few years ago, Outback Steakhouse called Bill Adler, executive director of the Massachusetts Lobstermen's Association, about a surf-and-turf problem.

In Massachusetts, the restaurant chain couldn't just buy a box of frozen American lobster tails plucked from New England waters to later prepare and plate shell-on beside a filet. Instead, the restaurants were forced to feature spiny lobster tails sourced from the Gulf of Mexico or South African or Australian waters, leaving Outback with a question for Adler: What's going on here in Massachusetts?

The answer, Adler said, was the law, which allowed for processing but not sales of American lobster tails within state lines.

That is, until Friday, when Gov. Deval Patrick signed a 2014 budget that includes an amendment allowing processed and frozen Homarus americanus — commonly known as "American" — lobster tails to be possessed and sold in Massachusetts for the first time.

State Rep. Sarah Peake, D-Provincetown, proposed rewording the law to allow sales of lobster tails in-state earlier this year, and it was later attached to the budget. In approving the $33.6 billion spending plan, Patrick used his line-item veto to slash $240 million in transportation funding and $177 million in aid for cities and towns, but the lobster tail proposal survived.

"This is really a jobs bill and something that, in a very real way, will help our fishermen," Peake said. "We think this will open up a whole new market for Massachusetts lobstermen, increase demand, the price per pound and put a little more money in their pockets."

The change comes after similar decisions in Maine and other New England states, which had bans in place but decided to allow for sales of American lobster tails in recent years.

Before deciding to follow suit this year, the state Legislature ordered the Division of Marine Fisheries in 2012 to conduct a study, which recommended "modernizing" state law by allowing in-state sales, citing a lobster surplus and growing demand from consumers for a no-fuss lobster product.

"As an industry leader in Maine once told me, if I want to have chicken for dinner, I don't have to pluck feathers," said Dan McKiernan, deputy director of the Division of Marine Fisheries. "This is just putting the lobster product in a more usable form. You can now throw them right on the grill with a little bit of garlic butter."

To be legally sold, the tails must weigh at least 3 ounces.

The division's 42-page recommendation includes letters from seafood companies, the Massachusetts Restaurant Association and the lobstermen's association in support of opening the state market.

Because of concerns that processed lobsters might harm the market for live lobsters, the lobstermen's association had supported continuing the prohibition on in-state sales when the state law was amended to allow processing of frozen shell-on lobsters in 1997.

When the law was amended, the processing for distribution of lobster tail was legalized but legislators stopped short of allowing in-state sales.

But in November, Adler wrote that allowing in-state sales would improve the price per pound paid to lobstermen.

Passed in 1950, the ban on possessing mutilated lobster was rooted in concerns that fishermen and seafood dealers would break the tails off undersized lobsters.

Today, only licensed wholesale dealers are allowed to process lobster, giving law enforcement officers the opportunity to ensure that lobsters conform to minimum size requirements.

After seeing prices plummet in recent years to levels last seen 20 years ago, lobster fisherman William Souza said he welcomed calmer financial waters on the horizon.

"What happens is we have too many lobsters in the market," said Souza, who lives in Truro but fishes out of Provincetown. "We can barely make it as it is now. If they process more lobsters, that relieves more pressure on the market. Hopefully it will stabilize the price a little bit."